IN THE NAHE OF LIBERTY 

ANTI-IMPERIALIST MEETING 

TREMONT TEMPLE, APRIL 4, 1899. 






PROTEST AGAINST THt 
FHILIPITNE POLICY 



PUBLISHED BY THE 

ANTI-IMPERIALIST LEAGUE 

1S99 



ROCKWELL AND CHURCHILL PRESS. 
BOSTON, MASS. 



A meeting was held in tlie Treuiont Tein[)le, Boston, on 
the eveuing of Tuesday, April 4, 18911, in pursuance of the 
following call : 

IN THE NAME OF LIBERTY. 

Anti-Imperialist Meeting. Protest against the Philippine 
Policy. The Hon. A. K. Pillsulrv will preside. 
Address bv 

The Hon. GEORGE 8. BOUTWELL. 

Short s[)eeclies by the Hon. .Ja.mks K. Dinbak, the 
Hon. HERBrjJT C. Parsons, the Hon. Robicrt 31. jMorse, 
Col. Tho:\ias L. Livi:u.M()ri;. 

There were present of the persons invited to take seats 
upon the platform: Mr. Moses Williams, INIr. Henry B. 
Metcalf, Pev. S. R. Fuller, Rev. C. G. Ames, Rev. C. 
F. Dole, Col. T. W. Higgiuson, Rev. Geoige C. Lori- 
uier, D.D., Representatives Myers, Stone, and Severance, 
Professor Charles E. Fay, Judge Asa French, Professor 
C. R. Lanman, Mr. Pjarthold Schlesinger, Mr. Moorfield 
Storey, Senators Keneiick and Innes, Mv. S. Endicott 
Peabody, Col. C. R. Codmau, Mr. George E. McNeill, 
Dr. Edward W. Emeison, Professor "\V. T. Sedgwick, 
Rev. Samuel W. Dike, Hon. Winslow Warren, Mr.^ Will- 
iam Endicott, Rev. B. F. Trueblood, General P. A. Col- 
lins, Mr. E. H. Clement, Mr. Francis E, Abbot, Mr. 
Edward Fitzwilliam, Mr. Robert Treat Paine, Mr. .Tames 
P. Muuroe, Mr. Albert S. Parsons, Mr. David Greene 
Haskins, .fr., jNIr. Erving Winslow, General F. A. Osborn, 
Mr. Gamaliel Bradford. 



THE HON. ALBERT E. PILLSBURY. 

The Hon. Albert E. Pillsbury, in calling the meeting 
to order, said : This meeting is called to consider the 
present attitude of our government toward the people of 
the Philippines. The situation is very simple. Less 
than a year ago we declared war against Spain, in the 



name of liberty :iik1 hninanity, f"i iur liarlmruus ireat- 
ment of the Cubans. To-ilay we aic doing in the I'hilip- 
pines what wc made wai' U[)on S[)aiH for doing in Cuba. 
Wc are laying waste the country with lire and sword, 
burning villages and slaughtering the inhabitants, because 
they will not submit to our rule. 

ft is said that as we are in possession of the Philip- 
pines wc must i)rcserve order. But Spain was in posses- 
sion of Cuba, and this was her excuse. If the pretext is 
good for us now it was good for Spain then. We refused 
to accept it. AVe answered it with war. A\'e have now 
taken the sword from Spain and turned it upon a peoi)lc 
to whom we hold the same relation that Spain then held 
to the Cubans. Indeed, our right to slaughter the Fili- 
pinos is less than hers to slaughter the Cubans, as Spain 
had been in possession of Cuba from the earliest times, 
while we have but just set foot in the riiilippines, under a 
title which the inhabitants arc liound neither in lau- nor 
morals to respect. 

A year ago the name of Weyler was the execrati(jn «»f 
the whole civilized world. The decree of AVeyler to the 
Cubans was " submission or extermination." To-day, if 
we can trust our information, the same decree is being 
enforced in the name of the United States against the 
people of the Philippines. The Manila correspondent of 
a New York newspaper, which is authority for this if i( 
is authority for anything, gives us this interesting exam- 
ple of our way of doing it, in an account of the fighting 
around Manila : 

"Occasionally a Filipino w^ould fall forward apparently 
dead, wait until he w^as fairly under the heels of the 
Americans, and then foolishly rise and attempt to gain 
safety. To shoot a man at six feet range with a Spring- 
Held ritle is a hard thing to do, but the orders were to let 
no insurgent live, and off would go the whole side of his 
head, or he would fall with a wound through the abdomen 
large enough to drop a potato through." 

Even Weyler could hardly do better than this. Are the 
American people satisfied to have their government en- 
gaged in this business? That is the question to-day, and 
that is the question before this meeting. 

It has been said by high authority that nine-tenths of 
the people support the policy of the government. There 
are many who support it, for a variety of reasons, but I 
am not aware that the people have been counted upon 
this question. There are Republicans who feel bound to 



5 



support it as the policy of a Repuljlican administration. 
The army and navy support it, becaust for tliem it is 
duty and promotion. There are expectant politicians 
who support it as the policy of more offices and more 
|)Ower. Some statesmen, hitherto eminent for twisting the 
British lion's tail, support it, though the caudal appen- 
dage is now in another hand, the hand of British diplo- 
macy, which is leading them to do its work, — for all this 
is done more for Great Britain than for us. There are 
newspapers which support it, on various grounds, some as 
party joui'uals, some for the glory of foreign empire, some 
in the interest of trade, one, I believe, in the cause of 
civil service reform, and some possibl}' with a remote 
view to their circulation. There are ministers of the 
gospel who support it, in the intervals of wondering why 
more people do not attend their ciiurches, believing, I 
[)resume, that the Prince of Peace will approve the killing 
of half the Filipinos if his message of good-will toward 
men may be carried to the other half. There are also 
high-minded and patriotic citizens who submit to it be- 
cause they see no help for it. Their view is this : We 
are in the Philippines, wisely or unwisely, righth" or 
wrongly, and we must restore order before we can deal 
with the question of government. 

Let us see about this. Is it necessary to slaughter the • 
inhabitants to restore order? What occasioned the dis- 
order which we are suppressing with fire and sword? 
Look back for a moment. How did we begin with the 
Filipinos ? We began by inviting their help against 
Spain, whose power in the islands they had broken before 
Dewey sailed into Manila bay. They were our allies, 
formall}' or informally, in honor it matters not which, so 
far as we needed them. 

The protocol of August 12 conveyed the first hint that, 
after availing ourselves of their help, we proposed to sub- 
jugate them and seize their countrj- to ourselves. They pro- 
tested. If they had done less they would have deserved, 
and had, the contempt of the world. They tried to appeal 
to our government for conference, if nothing more, upon 
their position and our purposes, and this appeal was denied. 

So our serpentine diplomac}' worked its way along 
until the purpose was openly declared to ignore our 
obligations, disregard their claim to a voice in the govern- 
ment of the territory, always theirs by right, which they 
had begun to reconquer from Spain, and subject them to 
our military power upon our own terms. To this they 



fi 



refused to submit, and we are killing them because they 
refuse. But for this there is no reason to believe that a 
hostile shot would ever luive been fired against us by a 
single Filipino. 

Who, then, were the aggressors? Tried by the high 
declaration with which we began the war against Spain, 
who were the aggressors? Forcible annexation was de- 
clared to be not only aggression, but criminal aggression. 
rt is said that we arc not guilty of such criminal aggi'e.s- 
sion, because we acquired the islands by purchase. Who 
sold them to us? The inhabitants have never sold them. 
We acquired from Spain only such title as she had, a title 
which never rested on anything but force. We took it, 
such as it was, with full notice that it was disputed, and 
not only disputed, l)ut broken. 

The headlines call the Filipinos ■• rebels." Why rebels? 
What allegiance have tliey ever owed to us? We have 
not even the paper authority of international law for 
claiming their allegiance. Wc knew before we set foot 
ill the islands that they denied allegiance to Spain, and 
we took full advantage of the fact. Our twenty millions 
paid to Si>ain did not pin-chase their allegiance, and nnich 
less did it pay for a drop of their blood. Do they oavc 
more allegiance to us than the Cubans owed to Spain? 
We began the war with a declaration of both houses of 
Congress that " the people of Cuba are, and of right 
ought to be, free and independent," expressly disclaiming 
any purpose to ac({uire sovereignty over them. AVhat 
single title had the Cubans to freedom and independence, 
or to possession of their own country, that the Filipinos 
do not possess to-dav ? Not one. Was our declaration, 
then, a lie? — the declaration which alone reconciled the 
people of the United States to invoke, in the cause of 
liberty, the horrors and calamities of war? A few im- 
perialists are candid enough to avow that it was a lie, and 
was never meant to be anything else. But that declara- 
tion was made in the name of the American peo[)le, and 
no less authority than theirs can recall it or depart from 
it, and they mean that it shall be made good, not only 
toward Cuba, but toward the world. 

It is said that tlie Filipinos are not fit to govern them- 
selves ; that the talk about liberty and self-government 
for them is nothing but empty sentiment ; and that the 
only practical course is to take and hold them with the 
strong hand. I do not pretend to know whether they 
are fit to govern themselves, but 1 do not know of any- 



body iu this coiiutiy who lias authority to commit us to a 
war with them upon tlie assumption tliat they are not. 
Cau we assume that they are not, while refusing them 
a chance to try the experiment ? Can we assume that 
there are not at least a few who are fit to govern the 
rest, as they do here? "What makes a people fit for lib- 
erty ? One test upon which we shall all agree is that 
they are fit for liberty who are able and willing to fight 
for it. Another test is such a sense of national obliga- 
tion that they kee[) their word when they have given it. 

The Filipinos with whom we so far have had anything 
to do, or with whom Spain has ever had to do, are not 
a savage race. They inhabit cities and villages, and live 
by the arts of peace. They are Christians, many of 
them, within the pale of a Christian church. They have 
formed a government of their own, with a written con- 
stitution which is said to be of high mei'it. The}' have 
every natural and political riglit to govern themselves 
that our fathers had as against Great Britain, unless lib- 
erty is for the white man alone, — and this is what our 
new policy of imperialism really means. 

Are the American people prepared to blot out the Dec- 
laration, the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Con- 
stitutional amendments, and take their stand upon the 
doctrine that the earth is for the white man, and for the 
white man who carries the heaviest guns? and have the}'^ 
reckoned up the consequences of that position ? Upon 
such a question as this tlie people must be consulted. 
It cannot be settled in a cabinet council. 

Next month a conference of the nations is invited to 
consider the possibility of disarmament and peace. How 
shall we appear in that assembly? Shall we cast our 
vote against the proposition? Or shall we hold up our 
red hands in its favor? It is time for the people to speak, 
with a voice of authority, and to stop this unrighteous 
and disgraceful work of slaugliter. The blood of our 
own brave men cries out against it, no less than the 
blood of our victims. It is time to say. Have done with 
the policy of hypocrisy and false pretences, to which we 
have never consented, and come back to the Americanism 
of Washington and Abraham Lincoln, in which we still 
believe, and settle the Philippine question by that rule, 
the only rule by which it can be settled in accord with the 
interests or the honor of the people of the United States. 



THE HON. GEORGE S. BOUTWELL. 

I have set before myself two main objects in the ad- 
dress that I have prepared for this occasion. luciden- 
tally I shall deal with some of the reasons that are 
tendered in justification of the war in Cuba and the war 
in the Philippine islands. 

I have gathered somewhat of evidence, and thereto I add 
something in the nature of argument in support of the 
claim that the people of this country have never abandoned 
the doctrine of self-government as the cardinal doctrine 
of our public life, whether in the municipality, the State, 
or the nation. 

Next I have marshalled a portion of the evidence that 
is at ray command which proves, or tends to prove, that 
the President has entered systematically upon a colonial 
policy in imitation of the colonial policy of Great Britain. 
You will observe as I go on that I give uo attention to 
the speeches that the President has made. I follow him 
by his doings. J give the President credit for ability, for 
signal ability, in the work of transforming this govern- 
ment, and, therefore, unless I err in that particular, his 
policy must be logical. When the actions of men and the 
language of men appear not to harmonize I look for the 
trutli in the actions of men. 

A knowledge of a single act, especially in the case of a 
public officer, may not warrant a conclusion as to the 
motives and purposes of the actor, but when there is an 
array of several consecutive acts, and all relating to the 
same subject matter, and all tending in the same direc- 
tion, a conclusion maybe deduced with unerring certainty. 

Four great events, for which the President is responsi- 
ble in his office, are reconcilable with each other upon one 
theory only, and they all tend to one conclusion, — an 
American colonial system. First, I mention the protocol 
of Aug. 12, 1898; second, the treaty of Paris of Dec. 
10, 1898; then the proclamation to the Philippines of 
Jan. 5, 1899 ; and, finally, the Philippiuean war of sub- 
jugation, which the President is now carrying on in the 
Philippine islands, upon his sole responsibility and with- 
out special authority of law. 

That war is transforming, and transforming rapidly, 
the eight or ten million Filipinos who were our friends, 
and who, except for this war, would have continued to be 
our friends, into enemies of the United States. When 



9 

this shall have boeu accomplished we shall be met by the 
fonnidable proposition that we cannot consent to the crec- 
tioii of an independent state in hostility to the govern- 
nieut by whose agency the state is to be created. Thus 
the colonial system will become the alternative — the in- 
evitable alternative. , ., ^ • ^ 

I pause to ask the devotees of commerce and the f riemls 
of missionary work whether the prospect for their under- 
takiucrs is now more inviting than it would have l^een if 
the President had aided the Filipinos to set up a govern- 
ment without delay, and thus to have bound them to this 
country by ties of gratitude which would have lasted 
through the centuries ? . , • , ^, 

The President is not drifting, nor is he anxious for the 
advice of Congress. He appears rather to shun its inter- 
ference He has a policy of his own — a colonial system 
for America which shall correspond to the colonial system 
of Great Britain. This is to be the distinguishing feature 
of his administration. On that policy we join issue 

Passino- from this topic for the moment and speaking 
for mysetf , I concede one point to the advocates of im- 
perialism. , ,. ^ . • 
If some of the opponents of the present policy of terri- 
torial, insular expansion have questioned the power ot 
this government to acquire territory either by purchase or 
by conquest they may have erred as to the extent of the 
sovereignty existing in the government of the United 
States, and it is certain that they have erred in raising a 
question which is not essential and which is calculated to 
embarrass the opponents of the present policy. The 
power to acquire territory is a necessary incident ot sov- 
ereigntv m any form of government, and its existence 
must always be assumed unless a contrary and control- 
ling declaration shall have been made in the fundamental 
law of a particular State. As no such restriction has 
been made in our Constitution, it must be admitted that 
the power of the United States to acquire territory is an 
unlimited power. It is in vain that we seek to luake a 
constitutional distinction between the acquisition of con- 
tiguous continental territories and the acquisition of 
islands in distant and unfrequented seas. l;or one, there- 
fore I have not opposed the acquisition of the Philippines 
upon the ground that there is not power in our govern- 
ment to acquire the islands either by conquest or by pur- 
chase but I have opposed the scheme as bad public 
polfc7 and for the further and controlling reason that 



10 



under our form of goverumeiit the iuhabitauts will be 
entitled to citizenship and to membership as States in the 
American Union. 

Our form of government in each and every of its attri- 
butes proceeds upon the idea that the people, acting in com- 
munities, are to govern themselves. It may be said with 
entire confidence that, until the opening of the Spanish 
war, there had not appeared in the United States one man 
whose voice could reach the public ear who had ventured 
to intimate that the United States could seize, or take, or 
accept, territories and peoples, and then proceed in the 
business of government upon any other theory than the 
theory of self-goveinment. 

No change in the public policy has been wrought by the 
fact that in many cases there has been a period of minor- 
ity, nor can the fact be quoted as evidence of a departure 
from the general policy of the country. With equal 
honesty it might be alleged that the full rights of citizen- 
ship are denied to young men, who do not possess tlie 
elective franchise until tliey arrive at the age of 21 years. 

With a marvellous inaptitude in the use of the faculty 
called reason the advocates of enforced jurisdiction over 
the Philippines cite the case of the District of Columbia, 
where the right to vote does not exist. The District of 
Columbia was a little territory originally, that measured 
10 miles on each of its four sides, or 100 square miles in 
all. It is now reduced to one-half of its original size. 
With sufficient reasons, with reasons imperative, in fine, 
reasons which were sufficient to distinguish a government 
subordinate from a government supreme ; reasons aris- 
ing from the experiences of a fugitive Congress, the 
framers of the Constitution made a wide departure from 
the theory of a republican government, and in a manly, 
open way they recognized the fact. They made no resort 
to subterfuges ; they made no attempt to qualify, to mis- 
interpret, or to conceal the fundamental truths of the 
Declaration of Independence. They said : A great exi- 
gency is upon us. We are engaged in a mighty struggle. 
We are striving to create a nation. In a nation there 
must be sovereignty, and that there may be sovereignty 
there must be a capital, free, always free, from the un- 
timely or impertinent or dangerous interference of a State 
or of a mob. They did not assume that some Congress 
might seize a territory, exercise jurisdiction, and author- 
ize or permit a President, as commander-in-chief, to keep 
the peace. They said : We will invoke the highest human 



11 



authority ; we will uot attempt to exercise jurisdiction 
over any territory aurl its occi"ipants, however iusignificant 
the territory or feeble iu numbers the dwellers thereon 
may be, unless the people aud States of the Union shall 
authorize the thing to be done. 

This of the territory of the United States, and over 
which a limited jurisdiction was to be thrown by the new 
Constitution. 

Let the advocates of imperial jurisdiction over the 
Philippines follow the example of the founders of the Re- 
public. Let them ask the people aud the States of the 
Union for constitutional authority to set aside the Decla- 
ration of Independence aud the preamble to the Constitu- 
tion, wherein the establishment of justice is named as 
only second in importance of the objects for which the 
Constitution was formed. 

Let them state the exact facts to the country, aud say 
that, with the aid of the natives, we have expelled Spain 
from the islands where she has claimed jurisdiction since 
1521, although her actual jurisdiction has never been 
exercised over more than one-half of the territory ; that 
we have succeeded to the title of Spaiu, but without the 
concurrence of the natives ; that the territory is equal 
in extent to the territory of the States of New England 
and New York combined ; that the population is equal to 
the population of the seven States named ; and that we 
propose to govern these people and to tax these people 
without their consent, until iu our opinion they are capa- 
ble of governing themselves. 

Finally, we ask for authority to compel thera into sub- 
mission in case of resistance, aud we are able to assure 
the country that the millions on the islands are bound to 
the soil, and that they cannot find homes or abiding place 
or shelter anywhere else within the limits of the habi- 
table globe. We know that we are departing from the 
principles of our government when we attempt to rule 
and to tax a people without their consent. We know that 
our proposition is inconsistent with the preamble to the 
Constitution, and that it is especially inconsistent with the 
Declaration of Independence, wherein these words are 
used : 

" We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men 
are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator 
with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, 
liberty, aud the pursuit of happiness. That to secure 
these rights governments are instituted among men, deriv- 



12 



iuor their just powers fi'ora the consent of the governed. 
That whenever any form of government becomes destruc- 
tive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or 
to abolish it, and to institute nevr government, laying its 
foundations on such principles and organizing its powers 
in such form, as to them sliall seem most lilcely to effect 
tlieir safety and happiness." 

Let them say to the country : AVe stand in the presence 
of these great political truths, we recognize their binding 
force, we shrink from the violation of them in setting up 
governments and enforcing systems of taxatio'i over and 
among a people whose wishes have not been consulted, 
and whose voice has not been heard. We realize that 
these truths are for the islanders as well as for us, and 
that thereby they are pre-justified in resisting any attempt 
that we may make to set up our government over them. 
Moreover, one of our trusted leaders has said of himself 
and of his associates, "There is not one among us who 
would not cut off his hand sooner than be false to the 
principles of the Declaration of Independence and to the 
great traditions and ideals of American history." Hence 
it is that we ask the people and States of the American 
Union to assume the responsibility. 

By this course the advocates of free conquest and 
imperial schemes of government may bring themselves 
within the precedent of the founders of the Republic, who 
created a voiceless municipality that a nation might pos- 
sess sovereignty. 

In support of the request three reasons might be offered : 
(1.) A possibility of an increase in the Philippines in the 
demand for low-priced cotton cloths, and thus the manu- 
facturing industries of Fall River and Lowell and kindred 
cities might be improved. 

(2.) The field for missionary work might be enlarged. 
One observation on this point. The war through which 
we are now passing has been tolerated by some and de- 
fended by others as a war in behalf of humanity, or as a 
war which will enlarge the field for the spread of Chris- 
tianity. AVars will not cease until mankind abandon the 
opinion that the sentiment of humanity, in any of its many 
forms of expression, or the s[)read of any system of religion, 
can justify the sacrifice of human life in war. Wars for 
humanity, for civilization, for religion, have no fixed points 
at which, in the nature of things, they are to terminate. 
Our Cuban war, for humanity, has spread already to the 
Philippines, and for a like reason it may pass over to 
China. 



13 



(3.) The forcible seizure and occupation of the Philip- 
pines by us may prevent the forcible seizure and occupa- 
tion of the islands by some other nation possessing less 
wisdom and humanity in government than we claim for 
ourselves. 

Can any one, can the President or Senator Lodge, have 
a doubt about the verdict of the country upon these prop- 
ositions? 

Are wars to be justified ujjou the ground that markets 
may be extended? On the contrary, I hazard the state- 
ment that every war limits the ability of the people to 
make purchases, and for the reason that the earnings of 
the laborers are consumed in war taxes. Wars tend to 
enhance the price of the products of labor, and to dimin- 
ish the means of the toilers in every line of industry. 
Wars increase the demand for tlie enginery of war, but 
they limit the demand for everything else. The markets 
of the world are not opened by wars abroad, but by 
schools, by institutions of design and technology, by 
inventions, and by applied science at home. Whoever 
can excel in cheapness and quality of production will 
open all the markets of the world to his products. All 
markets are closed against the inferior and the more 
expensive articles. While England is struggling for new 
markets she is losing the monopoly of the markets that 
she has conquered, and one by one and step by step they 
are passing into the hands of France, Germany, and the 
United States. Wars are closing the markets of the 
world against those who carry on the wars. The war 
with Spain has added largely to the cost of production in 
the United States by the new taxes laid upon capitalists 
and upon laborers. 

The prosecution of the war against the Filipinos is an 
offence to every producer, and every laborer, and every 
taxpayer in America. Our demand must be this : With- 
draw the troops from the Philippines, and that without 
regard to any arrangements that may have been made. 
Leave the islands to the inhabitants. Let them set up a 
government for themselves. Let it be recognized as an 
independent state, and without any inquiry by us as to its 
character. Nothing can be more presumptuous in human 
affairs than the claim that the President and Congress are 
entitled to an opinion even upon the matter of the govern- 
ment of the Philippines. The only preparation for such 
a work is the preparation which ignorance may furnish. 
We are ignorant of their languages, of their traditions. 



14 



of their habits of life, of the exactions which climate may 
make upon the dwellers in the tropics, and yet we think 
ourselves capable of governing a distant and foreign people 
with whom ordinary intercourse is impossible. 

What is the next step in the career of [)uljlic crime on 
which the country has entered? Only this : The creation 
of a mercenary army, to be composed of men with whom, 
for the most part, we are unable to have personal inter- 
course, who have no knowledge of our institutions, and 
who will be bound to us by no tie, except that wliich may 
be established between the oppressed and the oppressor. 
The demand has already come from Cuba, and for the 
reason that our troops cannot remain in the island after 
April 1. If natives can be obtained in Cuba and Porto 
Rico, what is to be done for or with the 40,000 citizen 
soldiers who are in the Philippines? Mercenary armies 
have been the curse of every country in which they have 
found employment. At the best, they are bound to the 
country that they serve by no other tie than the tie which 
binds the employed to the emi)loycr. In the Philippines 
the relation will be that of the oppressed to the oppressor. 
We are to establish a system of slavery in tlie Philippines, 
and then trust to an army composed of men who are con- 
scious of the chains that they are wearing. 

The battle of the 5th of February has given us control 
of the suburbs of Manila, but the subjugation of tiie island 
of Luzon is the work on which the army is entering. 
That may be a work of days, or the contest may go on 
for years. 

I pass now to the question of responsibilit}', and I 
assume, first of all, that the responsibility for the existing 
state of affairs is upon the President. To that point I 
shall offer some evidence. How far Aguinaldo represents 
the inhabitants of the islands is not known to any one. 
Three facts, however, are established : He represents 
somebody ; he has a military force at his command that 
rises to the proportions of an army ; and he is the only 
person in the island of Luzon who makes a claim to 
authority. 

A vital charge against the President and the administra- 
tion is this : Since the 12th of August, when tlie protocol 
was signed, Aguinaldo has been treated as a rebel, or as 
an enemy. 

As early as December, 1898, we sent a menacing fleet 
and army for the purpose of capturing or destroying tl)e 
city of Iloilo. That movement was delayed for the 



15 

ratification of the treaty. Tlie treaty ratified was pre- 
auuouuced as security for peace, and immediately we 
attacked the city of Iloilo. It is now evident that every 
habitation and hamlet that is within range of the sliot and 
shell of our navy will suffer a like fate. How otherwise 
is the rebellion to be suppressed ? 

The President's proclamation of January 5 was a 
declaration of war against the inhabitants of the Philip- 
pine islands. The declaration of war by us justified the 
Filipinos in making actual war, and it is in vain that we 
attempt to transfer the responsibility from ourselves to 
them.' Nor as yet is it an established fact that the war 
of arras was commenced by Aguinaldo. What are the 
allegations and demands of" the proclamation? I quote 
from its language : 

1. It is alleged in the proclamation that the destruc- 
tion of the Spanish fleet and the capture of the city of 
Manila "practically effected the conquest of the Philip- 
pine islands." 

2. " As the result of the victories of American arms 
the future control, disposition, and government of the 
Philippine islands are ceded to the United States." 

3. " The military government heretofore maintained 
by the United States in the city, harbor, and bay of Manila 
is to be extended with all possible dispatch to the whole 
of the ceded territory." / 

4. "The taxes and duties heretofore payable by the 
inhabitants to the late government become payable to the 
authorities of the United States, unless it be seen fit to 
substitute for them other reasonable rates or modes of 
contribution to the expenses of government." 

5. " In the fulfilment of this high mission, supporting 
the temperate administration of affairs for the greatest 
o-ood of the governed, there must be sedulously maintained 
the strong arm of authority, to repress disturbances and 
to overcome all obstacles to the bestowal of the blessings 
of good and stable government upon the people of the 
Philippine islands, under the free flag of the United 
States." 

The President occupies the position in reference to the 
Philippines that Russia occupies in regard to Poland, and 
a position kindred to the position that Austria occupied to 
Huno-ary in 1848, when Kossuth was carrying on a contest 
in behalf of self-government in which all America sympa- 
thized. 

The President abandons the Declaration of Independ- 



16 



ence, and sets aside the immortal words, " Governments 
are instituted among men, deriving tlieir just powers from 
the consent of the governed." He is now using an army 
of American citizens to overcome an obstacle — the 
opinion of the inhabitants of the Philippine islands that 
they have a natural and inalienable right to govern them- 
selves. In the presence of the proclamation of January 5 
the conjecture even is impossible that the President con- 
templates a time when the inhabitants of the Philippines 
will be permitted to govern themselves. 

He is now engaged in carrying on a war for tlie purpose, 
as he alleges, of " bestowing the blessings of good and 
stable government upon the people of the Philippine 
islands, under the free flag of the IJnited States." Thus 
does the President avow a purpose through war to under- 
take the " bestowal of the blessings of good and stable 
government, under the free flag of the United States," upon 
unwilling peoples. Wiiat is the meaning of this declara- 
tion, when it is stripped of its rhetoric? Only tliis — 
we are to enter upon wars of conquest, and to govern the 
conquered by force. The flag which to us is a free flag 
would be to them only an emblem of tyranny. 

What sort of a government is the President setting up 
in the Philippine islands? The answer must be this: A 
military government set up over a people who have been 
subdued or who are to be subdued by military power. 

Can such a government be a good government in the 
opinion of those who are the subjects of it? 

And of what value is the opinion of tlie governing party 
to those who are the subjects of the government? 

The President avows the purpose to enforce submission 
against all resistance, and to govern and to tax without 
reference to the wishes of the inhabitants. 

He asserts a purpose to use all the powers ever claimed 
by any despot. In fine, there is no middle ground in 
principle between the republicanism of the Declaration of 
American Independence and the broadest claims that were 
ever put forth by a czar of Russia. That some despot- 
isms are mild in administration cannot justify the exist- 
ence of despotic governments. The promises of the 
President as to the gentleness of his rule in the Philippine 
islands cannot qualify the badness of his policy as he has 
set it forth in the proclamation of January 5. 

Promises ! Of what value are promises as security 
against the evils of military rule over a people 7,000 or 
10,000 miles away? It was as recently as the first third 



17 

of the mouth of February that the Secretary of War 
admitted the necessity of conceding to General Otis abso- 
lute power to deal with the Filipinos upon liis own judg- 
ment, and in the second week of March a like authority 
was given General Brooke in Cuba. And uow the admin- 
istration offers in its defeuce the statement that it is igno- 
rant of an order by which a military chieftain forbade the 
free transmission from one American citizen to another of 
a speech spoken in the Senate of the United States by a 
senator from a sovereign State. To make "the gruel 
thick aud slab " we have the startliug rumor that the cap- 
ture of prisoners has been forbidden. Thus for the time 
being there is a full surrender of executive supervision 
over^'the military authorities in the Philippine islands and 
in Cuba. Thus does the civil authority disappear, and 
thus does military rule take its place. Thus is despotism 
the constant companion of military rule. Under such 
circumstances, of what value are executive promises of 
o-ood government, even if the official life of the promiser 
could be extended from two years to two centuries? 

Has not this couniry had its fill of experience of mili- 
tary governments while the States of the South were pass- 
ing from the rebellion to renewed statehood in the Union ? 
And was there one man who did not rejoice as the days 
of deliverance came when military rule disappeared and 
the rule of the people was reestablished ? 

Our military districts of those days were within call 
of the telegraph every minute of the twenty-four hours ■ 
we had actual personal supervision of what was going on ; 
we had free communication through private and public 
channels ; there was no censorship of the press and the 
telegraph ; and yet evils of the gravest character were the 
incidents of that transition period. With this experience 
we are invited to stand aside and be silent while the 
President forces a "good and stable government" upon 
an unwilling people, through military rule. 

This is the advice of our fellow-citizen, Governor Long, 
advice which some of us can neither accept. nor heed. 

Although I place myself under the disagreeable neces- 
sity of repeating what I have said on former occasions, I 
shall trace the steps by which the President has developed 
his aggressive, warlike, and un-American policy. I shall 
not now deal with his motives and ultimate purposes. I 
pause, however, to say that it is great good fortune for 
the country that the brevity of our presidential term gives 
to the people an opportunity to interrupt or to change a 
bad public policy. 



II 



Dewey entered the harbor of Manila Sunday, the first 
day of May, 1898. By whose agency, by whose aid, by 
whose cooperation was he enabled to achieve the most 
illustrious success in modern naval warfare, and in an 
hour to advance himself to an equality in rank with Far- 
ragut and Nelson ? 

His coadjutor and ally was Aguinaldo, and his aids 
were the military forces under the command of Aguinaldo, 
who were then engaged in the work — the successful work 
— of expelling Spain from the Philippines. He was then 
thought to be worthy of our friendship and alliance. We 
were engaged in a common cause — tlie overthrow of 
Spanish rule. Aguinaldo was not then denounced as an 
enem3' or as a rebel, nor was a hint whispered by any 
one in authority that he was an adventurer, and a person 
without support in the islands. That lie is an adventurer 
and a person without influence among the Filipinos is a dis- 
covery of more recent times — a discovery made in the 
presence of the fact that he is in command of an army 
confronting us at every point. Following the occupation 
of the harbor of Manila and the capture of Cavite, there 
was no military movement until after the twelftli of Au- 
gust, when the protocol was signed. 

If our title to the Philippines is a title by conquest that 
title was gained by the entrance to the harbor of Manila 
and the capture of Cavite. At that time, however, there 
was no claim to jurisdiction by conquest, and there was 
no suggestion that Aguinaldo was either an adventurer, 
a rebel, or an enemy. He was our associate and co- 
worker for the overthrow of the authority of Spain, and 
to the uninitiated he appeared to be an ally. 

It may be a misfortune for the administration that its 
subordinates have left footprints in the sands which indi- 
cate the position of the administration in the spring and 
summer of 1898. 

The correspondence of Mr. Williams, consul-general at 
Manila, and of Consul Pratt, in the months of March and 
April, is conclusive to the point that Aguinaldo was treated 
as an ally in case of war, and conclusive as to the fact 
that as early as the closing days of March the authorities 
of Spain were at the mercy of the insurgents. 

Mr. Williams writes under date of March 19: "Re- 
bellion never more threatening to Spain. Rebels out- 
numbered the Spaniards, resident and soldiery, probably 
a hundred to one." 

Consul Pratt sends this certificate to Secretary Day of a 



19 



date uot earlier tliau April 2-S — nine days after the dec- 
laration of war: "General Aguinaldo impressed me as 
a man of intellectual ability, courage, and wortliy of the 
confidence that had been placed in him. 

" No close observer of what has transpired in the Philip- 
pines during the past four years could have failed to 
recognize that General Aguinaldo enjoyed, above all 
others, the confidence of the Philippine insurgents and the 
respect alike of the .Spaniards and foreigners in the 
islands, all of ivhich vouched for liis justice and high sense 
of honor." 

As late as July 18 Consul-Geueral Williams gave the 
insurgent leaders full indorsement in a letter to our 
Department of State : '• General Aguinaldo, Agoncillo, 
and Sandico are all men who would all be leaders in their 
separate departments in any country." These quotations 
may not rise to the dignity of proofs, but they suggest 
inferences, reasonable inferences, in support of two prop- 
ositions : (1) That the power of Spain was so much 
impaired that it could not have withstood the insurgents 
after the declaration of war of April 19, even if Dewey 
had not appeared in the bay of Manila. (2) That it was 
uot until the 12th day of August — a day fraught with 
evils to the country second only to the evils and sacrifices 
that followed the proceedings at Montgomery, Ala., Feb. 
22, 1861 — that it was not until the 12th day of August 
that the leadership of Aguinaldo was repudiated, his char- 
acter assailed, and his proffers of friendship and harmony 
of action contemptuously spurned. 

An address by Aguinaldo to the Filipinos was dated 
at Cavite, within Admiral Dewey's quarters, the 18th day 
of June. A paragraph in that address deserves special 
attention. It reads thus : " I proclaim in the face of the 
whole world that the aspirations of my whole life, and the 
final object of all my desires and efforts, is no other thing 
than your independence, because I have the innate convic- 
tion that that constitutes your unalterable desire, as in- 
dependence means for us the redemption from slavery and 
tyranny, the reconquest of our lost liberties, and our entry 
into the concert of the civilized nations." 

Herein we find a distinct declaration of the purpose of 
Aguinaldo — the independence of the Philippines. 

It was made in the quarters of Admiral Dewey, and 
six and forty days after we had conquered the Philip- 
pine islands, if our conquest dates from the advent of 
Dewey into the bay of Manila. 



20 



In my addfess at the Essex Institute I spoke of the 
events of August 13. 

It is sufHcient for rae to say at this momont that the 
entry into the city of Manila was authorized by the proto- 
col, and that the proceeding was without value as a mili- 
tav}' movement. 

As the protocol decreed an armistice, all military move- 
ments, whether by one party or the other, were of no 
value. The protocol fixed the standing of the parties 
irrevocably. The harbor and city of Manila were placed 
temporarily under the control of the United States. This 
stipulation was, in fact, an admission that we did not 
then claim the islands by conquest. 

The President now claims title by conquest, which by a 
recent authority has been characterized as a crime, and 
he claims title also through the treaty by which Spain's 
title passes to us. 

I do not press you to an opinion upon these proceed- 
ings. 

I have one suggestion only to make : Is it a matter for 
adverse comment or surprise that Aguinaldo entertains 
the notion that he has been misled, deceived, and in the 
end betrayed by the authorities of the United States? 

In the presence of these facts of history I invite you to 
one conclusion, — an inevitable conclusion, — namely, that 
whatever there may have been of expense, of loss of life, of 
physical suffering, and of permanent impairment of health 
in the men comprising our arm}- in the Philippines is due 
to the aggressive war policj^ of the United States. And 
can there be a doubt, the shadow of a doubt, as to the 
truthfulness of this further proposition — that the war 
would have come to an end at any moment if the Presi- 
dent had said to Aguinaldo : "Set up your government 
and we will retu'e ? Why has not this been said? The 
answer is on the surface. It is the purpose of the Presi- 
dent to seize and to hold the Philippines by the strong 
hand of conquest, to subjugate or to exterminate the 
natives, and there are indications that the two events may 
coincide in respect to time. And I ask those of my 
countrymen who condemned, and condemned justly, the 
brutality of the war that Weyler carried on in Cuba 
whether the war that General Otis is now carrying on in 
the Philippines is not equally brutal and upon the same 
lines of policy — the destruction of the homes of non- 
combatants and the concentration of the women and chil- 
dren in the forests and open fields, where they can obtain 



21 



neither food nor shelter? Is the country to be beguiled 
and misled by the statement, now often made, that the 
great majority of the Filipinos are ready to accept our 
rule, and that Aguiiialdo is the only obstacle to submis- 
sion and peace ? He is an obstacle to submission and 
peace; but how, and why? He commands an army that 
checks, if it does not arrest, our advance as we attempt 
to cover the country in the rear of Manila. 

The inhabitants have set up a government based on a 
declaration of independence that was issued the first day 
of August, 1898, and which was sigued by the elected 
chiefs of 186 towns and provinces. 

I select two sentences from the declaration, prefaced 
by the remark on my part that their quality will justify a 
reading in any assembly of American citizens. They 
say: 

" The Filipinos are fully convinced that, if individual 
perfection, material, moral, and intellectual, is necessary 
to contribute to the well-being of their fellow-beings, the 
people must have tlie fulness of life — requiring liberty 
and independence — to contribute to the infinite progress 
of humanity." They say of their constituency: "They 
fight, and will fight, with decision and' constancy, without 
fear, and never receding before any obstacles that oppose 
their aim and desire, and with everlasting faith which 
realizes the power of justice and the fulfilment of the 
providential laws." 

It is against a people who have thus given expression 
to sentiments worthy of the age of Jefferson, worthy of 
the lips of Lincoln, that we are making war, aggressive, 
unjustifiable, cruel war. What is the issue ? The Presi- 
dent demands unconditional submission, including taxa- 
tion by military decrees. 

The Filipinos plead for the opportunity to exercise the 
right of self-government — self-government, nothing more. 
If the President would accept the teacliings of our Decla- 
ration of Independence we should be at peace. 

The President and his supporters ask us to accept the 
situation. We decline to accept the situation. 

We say in reply : You have involved the country in au 
unnecessary and unjust war. We say further : You can 
command peace with honor to the country, and, moreover, 
you can create a free and grateful commonwealth where 
now you are sacrificing human lives in an effort to extend 
the area of human bondage, which, euphemistically, you 
term " a process of benevolent assimilation." 



22 



At the end and for this occasion I arraign the Impe- 
rialistic part}' upon two grounds. First, they have aban- 
doned the fundamental truths of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. Their policy requires the abandonment of the 
truth that " governments are institnted among men, deriv- 
ing their just powers from the consent of the governed." 

In harmony with that policy the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence was qualified and limited in the Senate and upon 
the poor pretext that the truth of the declaration iiad not 
always and everywhere been followed by the i)eople and 
government of tlie United States. What great truth was 
ever yet observed in its fulness? Not even the truths 
of the Sermon on the Mount. And are failuies to be 
made the occasion for neglecting and rejecting the truth 
altogether? Instead of burial in the earth, the truths of the 
Declaration of Independence should be read in all lan- 
guages. 

It is not necessary to inquire whether the British min- 
istry and our authorities have come to an understanding 
upon the questions which primarily concern England and 
Russia. The seizure of the Philippine islands by us is 
English policy — a policy more important to England than 
the possession of the islands in her own hands. 

We are thus, and by England, to be forced into the 
conflict with Russia. In accepting England's policy in 
the East we accept her sovereignty. 

One of the calamitous incidents of this war has not 
been noticed publicly by any one except as an event for 
congratulation. I speak of the claim made by England 
that her refusal to cooperate with the states of Europe 
saved us from a conflict with tliose states combined. The 
misery of the incident is in the fact that England has laid 
upon us an obUgation which we can neither satisfy nor 
repudiate. 

In the month of November last the anti-Imperialists 
were asked for a [)lau, and in a way that implied a lack of 
faith in our ability to furnish a plan. Time having been 
taken we are now able to submit our plan. With it we 
appeal to the country in the belief that the two main prop- 
ositions involved in our plan will be acceptable to the 
people ! (1) We demand the reenthronement of the truths 
of the Declaration of Independence to their former place 
in the hearts of the people and in the public policy of the 
United States. For that we shall strive. (2) We demand a 
distinct disavowal of any purpose on the part of the United 
States to accept the colonial policy of Great Britain. 



23 



Heuce we have set forth our purpose in regard to the 
Philippiae islands in these words : 

"1. Tlie Anti-Imperialist League demands the sus- 
pension of hostilities in the Philippines. 

" 2. The League insists that it is the duty of Congress 
to tender an otlicial assurance to the country and to the 
inhabitants of the Philippines that the United States will 
encourage the organization of such a government as may 
be agreeable to the people of the islands, and that upon 
its organization the LTuited Slates will, in accordance with 
its traditional and prescriptive policy in such cases, rec- 
ognize it as an independent and equal state among na- 
tions." 

This is our platform, and whether it is heeded or de- 
rided it has in it the quality of immortality. Until an end 
shall have been reached the contest must be over these 
two propositions — and the end cannot be reached until 
these two propositions shall have been accepted by the 
country. 



COL. THOMAS L. LIVERMORE. 

Col. Thomas L. Livermore, who had been expected to 
speak, was unable to be present, and sent a letter, in 
which he said : 

I do not willingly omit to express my opposition, at any 
appropriate time, to extension of our dominion across the 
ocean. The ocean is our strongest barrier against the 
aggression of foreign powers. During more than eighty 
years this barrier has enabled us to live without the 
burden of a great standing army or navy, and to enjoy 
and profit by the fruits of our labor. To assume dominion 
over the Philippines would be to wilfully sacrifice this 
immeasurable advantage, for it would commit us to main- 
taining with our arms territory within the sphere of the 
conrticting interests of great powers, 10,000 miles away 
from our shores. The cost of this burden would far ex- 
ceed any revenue we could derive from the Philippines, 
and the taxation resulting from it would bear heavily 
upon the people of this countr}'. 

War over the Philippines with other powers would 
imperil our commerce in every sea and lead to hostilities 
in our own waters. To deliberately sacrifice the advantage 
of our present situation — to make ourselves weak where 
we are now strong — would be folly beyond expression, 



24 



To the argument that we need the Philippines for a 
market, or as a base from which to acquire other marlvets 
in Asia, the reply is, that to settle our own unoccupied 
territory will give us a great and increasing market for 
many years to come, and south of us the whole western 
hemisphere offers us a free and expaudiug market for the 
next hundred years, and a better market than that to be 
fouud in the Philippines or in China. The Monroe doc- 
trine pledges us to the protection of this territory in our 
own hemisphere from invasion by the old world, and it is 
to this territoiy, wliere we already have our burden, that 
we should devote our attention rather than to remote 
territories like the Philippines. The period when we shall 
have filled these markets will be so remote that b}' that 
time the political geography of Asia may be so changed 
that struggles for markets there, like that now in progress 
between other great powers, will be needless and unheard 
of. 

The President rightly expressed the sentiment of the 
people of this country in saying that we did not enter into 
the Spanish Avar for conquest, and we hope that his 
recent assurance that we have not entered upon a course 
of imperialism will be proved by the event, but we have 
reason to distrust the wisdom of those directing our aft'airs 
when, professing the desire to give self-government to the 
Philippines, they have allowed us to drift into the bloody 
war now raging in Luzon. That it was the folly of the 
Filipinos themselves in attacking our forces which pre- 
cipitated the war affords no excuse if matters were need- 
lessly allowed to drift into the situation which provoked 
this result. If it was really the intention of the adminis- 
tration to establish self-government in the Philippines it 
is strange that no attempt was made to avail of Aguinaldo's 
government as the means of establishing it. He is an in- 
telligent and able leader, and, as far as we have heard, is 
quite as capable as any otlier native who could be selected 
to be the head of the government. We have not heard of 
objections to him or his government on the part of the 
people in the Philippine islands. Indeed, recent events 
seem to indicate that the people are devoted to his cause. 

The administration has never disclosed to the people of 
the United States any reason, consistent with the desire 
of establishing self-government in the Philippines, for 
repudiating Aguinaldo's government, and as far as we can 
judge by anything which has been disclosed to us we are 
led to believe that it would have been possible before the 



25 



war began to have come to an agreement with it under 
which the United States would have retained control of 
the customs for the reimbursement of the §20,000,000, and 
maintained a military force to insure this control, which 
force at the same time would have secured the rights and 
property of foreigners. 



THE HON. ROBERT M. MORSE. 

I quote at the outset a paragraph from Vattel's 
" Law of Nations" : "He who is engaged in war derives 
all his right from the justice of his cause. Whoever, 
therefox'e, takes up arras without a lawful cause can have 
absolutely no right whatever ; every act of hostility that 
he commits is an act of injustice. He is chargeable with 
all the evils, all the horrors of the war ; all the effusion of 
blood, the desolation of families, the rapine, the acts of 
violence, the ravages, the conflagrations are his works and 
his crimes. He is guilty of a crime against the enemy 
whom he attacks, oppresses, and massacres without 
cause ; he is guilty of a crime against his people, whom 
he forces into acts of injustice, and exposes to danger, 
without reason or necessity ; against those of his subjects 
who are ruined or distressed by the war, who lose their 
lives, their property, or their health, inconsequence of it; 
finally, he is guilty of a crime against mankind in gen- 
eral, whose peace he disturbs, and to whom he sets a per- 
nicious example. Shocking catalogue of miseries and 
crimes ! Dreadful account to be given to the King of 
kings, to the common Father of men ! " 

The President of the United States is now employing 
the array and navy in a war against the people of the 
Philippine islands with the avowed purpose of destroying 
their army and of reducing the people to admit the sover- 
eignty of our government. This war is conducted with all 
of the attendant miseries and horrors which Vattel so 
truthfully describes. In such a condition of things, the 
parallel to which has never before existed in our history, 
it is the right and duty of citizens who love peace and who 
believe in maintaining the high ideals for which our govern- 
ment has stood to inquire whether the war is righteous and 
justifiable, and if it is not such a war then to denounce it 
and to demand that it shall cease. 

It is not pretended that this war was declared by Con- 
gress or that it has been approved by Congress, in which 



26 



body aloue under our Coustitution the right to declare war 
exists, Tlie sole authoril}' for it urged by its supportex's 
is, first, that we had captured and held Mauila ; second, 
that we had agreed to buy the title of 8paiu to the Philip- 
pines, and, third, that the Filipinos have denied our right 
to sovereignty o^■er them, and have forcibly resisted it. 
But these facts constitute no justification whatever for the 
course which our government has taken. It is true that 
we had captured and held and still hold Mauila as the 
result of the war with Spain, and it may be conceded for 
the purpose of the argument that we had tliereby gained 
domiuiou over that city and its inhabitants, an area, let 
us say, of ten square miles in one of the 1,200 islands 
whose total area is 114,000 square miles. But that fact 
gave us no right to the immense territory beyond tlie city 
and to control over the 8,000,000 people who inhabit that 
territory. The claim to the Philipjnne islands by conquest 
is absolutely untenable. 

But what title have we acquired from Spain by pur- 
chase? If I were disposed to be technical I should 
remind you of the fact that an agreement to buy, not 
consummated I)}' delivery of possession, does not give 
title, and that at least until the ratifications of the treaty 
are formally exchanged and the purchase money paid it 
could not be said that our title by purchase is secured. 
But it is unnecessary to rest upon any such point. Let 
it be conceded tliat we have bought the title of Spain. 
Wliat then? Does the purchase of the title of Spain to 
its public property in these islands and of its claim to 
sovereignty carry with it tlie dominion over the native 
inhabitants who had at the time of the signing of the 
treaty practically achieved their independence, who had 
au organized government, a capital city, an accredited 
army, a system of taxation, churclies, schools, and the 
printing-press, and whose consent had never been asked, 
still less obtained, to this assumption of sovereignty? 

It is idle to say that because we bought Florida and 
Louisiana and Alaska and tliereby secured the right to 
hold and govern those territories and their populations 
we have therefore acquired the same right over the 
Filipinos. In none of the three cases to which I have 
referred was there any organized government or any 
assertion of independent nationality or indeed any con- 
siderable population, and in none of them was any objec- 
tion made by the inhabitants to our claim of dominion. 
A nation, whether black or white, cannot in these days, 



27 



at least according to the doctrines which we have learned 
and taught, be 1 ought and sold like nierchantlise. The 
good intentions of the purchaser to treat it well and give 
it as much liberty and opportunity to govern itself as he 
may think wise count for nothing. Those intentions 
may properly be used as arguments to obtain the consent 
of a nation to abdicate its sovereignty', but if they fail as 
arguments thev cannot lawfully be used to authorize 
force. Never was a more flimsy effort made to justify 
acts of violence and war than this claim that we have 
bought the right to govern the Filipinos. 

Until this right was asserted by the President there was 
no suggestion or probability of disturbance in the Philip- 
pines. The people had welcomed our coming. Emerg- 
ing at last out of the darkness and misery of the harsh 
and oppressive government to which they had been sub- 
jected for centuries, the^' beheld in our flag the symbol of 
freedom, they rallied about it, they aided our efforts, they 
fondly believed that at last their troubles were at an end. 
Until the President insisted upon the purchase of their 
native couutr}' as a provision of the treaty, and until he 
declared that the American flag should not be hauled 
down from any place where it had once been raised, there 
was no sign of discontent or disorder or of attempts at 
violence by the Filipinos. The sole ground for their 
action was the assertion of our right to govern them with- 
out their consent, and yet for their assertion of that right 
we should honor them as much as we have honored the 
Greeks or the Hungarians or the Mexicans or the Cubans, 
who have offered their lives in defence of their liberties. 

When we abandon our claim to supremacy their resist- 
ance will cease, and there is no reason to doubt that they 
would accept any proper help which we might tender tow- 
ard the rebuilding of the waste places, the restoration of 
order, and the establishment of a stable government. So 
long as we assert that claim, no matter what seeming 
success in the way of destruction of lives and of property 
and even of outward z'ecognition of our rule we may 
secure, we shall never get and we shall never deserve to 
get the loyal submission of these people to our authority. 

Our duty, tlierefore, is clear. It is commanded by our 
sense of right, by our love of liberty, by our sympathy 
with oppression. It is to abandon forever these foolish 
dreams of empire, this attempt to engraft the discarded 
methods of old-world tyranny upon the Declaration of 
Independence, to give back their country to the Filipinos, 



28 



and to do whatever it is possible lo do to repair the 
terrible havoc which we have caused. It will always be 
remembered, to our everlasting shame, that in less than 
one year we have destroyed more lives and more property 
and have done more to check the upward progress of a 
straggling [jeople than Spain has done in all the centuries 
of her occupation. In the future let the only reminder 
of our reckless raid be a simple monument standing some- 
where on the shore overlooking the sea near the graves of 
some of the thousands whom we have slaughtered, the 
image of America carved in stone, with covered and bowed 
head, humble, repentant, asking forgiveness, expiating 
her crime in the sight of God and men. 

How long it may be before the conscience of the nation 
shall be awakened, how many more daily records of the 
wretchedness and devastation which we are inflicting are 
yet to be made, no one can tell. But whether that time 
be long or short, let us not cease in our efforts to hasten 
it or fail to have patience and hope. 

While the flag with stars bedecked 
Tiireatens where it should protect, 

And the Law shakes hands with Crime, 
What is left us but to wait, 
Match our patience to our fate, 

And abide the better time ? 



THE HON. JAMES R. DUNBAR. 

Mr. Dunbar spoke brielly in opposition to the present 
policy in the Philippines. 



THE HON. HERBERT C. PARSONS. 

The presence of my name on the list of speakers for 
this meeting is to be considered, I take it, as a fulfilment 
of the unofficial but graphic newspaper announcement you 
have read that the country cousins were to be represented. 
I speak for certain of them, seriously, sir, when I say 
that they have a painful preparation for treating tlie 
question we are discussing liere, in an experience which 
began when, no longer ago than last May, they saw their 
brothers and sons marching out in health and vigor for 
what proved to be actual warfare ; an experience contin- 
ued when they welcomed back in the early autumn such 



29 



of these sons and brothers as had survived the shock of 
war, broken and wasted in body, shadows only .of the men 
as they went ont, tin experience just now completed in the 
reception home of the bodies of those who had given up 
their lives under the stress of tropical warfare. 

But your kindly introduction suggests another possible 
reason for my being here, that I am representative of 
another class, a class it is somewhat the fashion to dis- 
parage, the men in active politics. By them, sir, this 
(piestion is treated with cautious respect. To them, sir, 
it is a '' live wire," a live wire not yet safely insulated by 
the declarations of party platforms. However you may 
regard these men, at least you must give them credit for 
recognizing one great fact, more clearly perhaps than 
others, that this question is eventually coming to the 
American people for settlement. Whatever course may be 
taken by public officials, whatever pre-judgment there may 
be of public opinion, there will be no final solution of the 
great issue involved uutil it is passed upon by the people 
in their sovereign power. And, sir, in preparation for that 
final judgment, it is the first I'ight of the American people 
to know the truth, the whole truth, as to what the govern- 
ment is doing in the distant Philippine islands. It is their 
right to know the truth, not at some distant time, but day 
b}' day as these events are passing, and while public opin- 
ion is forming. They have reason to protest against, at 
least, this feature in the present policy, a feature borrowed 
from the code of imperialistic nations, the government 
censorship of the news, the government control of the 
information on which judgment is to be based. 

It is not necessary before this audience — and let me 
say ibat I am in my representative country-cousin capacitj% 
justly proud of our Aguinaldian Boston relatives here 
assembled — it is not necessary to continue the discus- 
sion of the great principles which have been treated with 
vigor and power by the speakers who have preceded me. 
I want only to ask the people here assembled whether or 
not they believe that when this question comes to its solu- 
tion the American people are going to be guided by the 
great lights by which this nation has thus far proceeded 
on its course. Will they follow or will they desert, as to 
this problem, the Declaration of Independence, the Consti- 
tution, the Farewell Address, the Gettysburg speech? Will 
they follow Washington, who not only warned them 
against the perils they now seem no longer to fear, but 
enforced his policy in the proclamation of neutrality issued 



30 



iu the face of what seemed the sentiment of the American 
people, but proved to have been a passing passion ? Will 
the}' follow^ Washington, or his forgotten detractors? 
Will thev follow James Monroe, iu that declaration of a 
nationar policy which, onl}' half fulfilled in our forbid- 
ding foreign intrusion on American soil, is wholly true 
when we also forbear from entrance into foreign turmoils? 
Will they follow Abraham Lincoln or Stephen A. Doug- 
las? Will they follow General (irant, who said: " Let 
us have peace," or General Shatter, who says : '* Let us 
sweep half a people oft" the face of the eartli in order to 
civilize the remaining half " ? 

It has always been taken by the American people to be 
their duty to test every question by the great standard of 
national policy their splendid past has given them ; and, 
sir, I believe that when this question comes to be settled 
we shall have but a new and strong demonstration of the 
truth President McKinley has put into a happy phrase — 
that " desertion of duty is not an American duty." 



RESOLUTIONS. 

At the close of tlie speaking Mr. AVilliam Endicott 
offered the following resolutions, vvliich were adopted 
unanimously : 

First. That our government shall take immediate 
steps toward a suspension of iiostilities in the Philippines 
and a conference with the Pliilippine leaders, with a view 
to preventing further bloodshed, upon the basis of a recog- 
nition of their freedom and independence as soon as proper 
guarantees can be had of order and protection to property. 

Second. That the government of the United States 
shall tender an official assurance to the inhabitants of 
the Philippine islands that they will encourage and assist 
in the organization of such a government in the islands as 
the people thereof shall prefer, and that upon its organi- 
zation in stable manner the United States, in accordance 
with its traditional and prescriptive policy in such cases, 
will recognize the independence of the Philippines and its 
equality among nations, and gradually withdraw all mili- 
tary aud naval forces. 



31 



LETTERS 

were received among others as follows : 

Mr. Francis H. Peabody wrote : '• I am in full sym- 
pathy with its purpose. 1 believe the time will come 
when the folly and wickedness of what we call imperial- 
ism will be conceded, and sneers at its opponents will 
cease to be in fashion." 

Rev. E. Winchester Donald, D.D. : "I acutely regret 
that I have an engagement on April 4 so imperative that 
I shall be unable to attend the anti-imperialistic meeting, 
fnsiguificaut as my presence there would be, I none the 
less should like to show my utter detestation of the mad 
folly (I cannot call it policy) which has involved the 
nation in so disreputable an enterprise as that into which 
our brave soldiers have been led." 

Hon. Charles Francis Adams: "As you know, I en- 
tirely sympathize with the object of this meeting ; more 
so now than ever, in view of the very gallant resistance 
the unfortunate Filipinos are making against our wholly 
unprovoked assault upon them. I can compare the situ- 
ation there and now to nothing so much as what the sit- 
uation would have been a century and a quarter ago had 
our French allies, after the w^ar of independence, ac- 
cepted the colonies as a transfer from P^ngland, taken 
the war on their own shoulders, and proceeded, as we 
express it with the Filipinos, to ' subdue ' the rebels, on 
the ground — and a perfectly good ground it would have 
t)een, according to our present code of reasoning — that 
there was no evidence whatever that we were capable of 
governing ourselves ; and the French, therefore, were 
responsible for us to their own consciences, and before 
God and the world, — and duty made destiny. Neither 
would there have been anything in the record of the next 
eight years under the old federation to have shown that 
they were not right in such a conclusion. On the con- 
trary, Shay's rebellion in Massachusetts would have 
quite justified them in such course of reasoning and line 
of procedure." 

Mr. Edward O'Donuell, corresponding secretary of the 
Central Labor Union: "I am heartily in sympathy 
with the movement, like, I may say, the majority of 



32 



the labor men. I blush for the position America has 
been placed in by the unwise and blindfolded national 
executive." 

Rev. Benjamin Fay Mills : " If the meeting is called, 
as I understand it, for the purpose of protesting against 
our carrying on a war for the sul)jugation of the Fili- 
pinos, I am heartily in symi)athy with its object." 

Rabbi Charles Fleischer: "I want to make sure that 
you will know that my heart beats strougly as ever in sym- 
pathy with the anti-Imperialist cause. I iiope that at this 
meeting tlie word will be spoken that shall be heard and 
heeded in all America." 

Mr. Henry W. Putnam : " I trust some of the speak- 
eis will denounce our government's treachery in turning 
upon a faithful ally after getting from him all the assist- 
ance wc needed against Spain, and plainly call a spade a 
spade. It is, I think, tiie first stain of actual personal 
faithlessness and dishonor upon the national scutcheon in 
our whole history as a nation. Every American should 
blush and hang his head for this perfidy, unsurpassed, if 
indeed equalled, by anything since the days of Cortez, 
Pizarro, and Alva. We are outdoing the Spaniards not 
only of the nineteenth, but of the six-teenth century, and 
are asserting the brutal right of the strongest in the bold- 
est and most unscrupulous form known to civilized his- 
tory since the expulsion of the Huguenots from their 
homes in France by Louis XIV. Wc are more culpable 
than those oppressors were ; for we are sinning against 
the light of the last two or three centuries of progress." 



RESOLUTIONS. 



First. That our government shall take immediate 
steps toward a suspension of hostilities in the 
Philippines and a conference with the Philippine 
leaders, with a view to preventing further blood- 
shed, upon the basis of a recognition of their free- 
dom and independence as soon as proper guarantees 
can be had of order and protection to property. 

Second. That the government of the United 
States shall tender an official assurance to the in- 
habitants of the Philippine islands that they will 
encourage and assist in the organization of such a 
government in the islands as the people thereof 
shall prefer, and that upon its organization in 
stable manner the United States, in accordance 
with its traditional and prescriptive policy in such 
cases, will recognize the independence of the Phil- 
ippines and its equality among nations, and grad- 
ually withdraw all military and naval forces. 



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